Joan Smith

Oct 30, 2024 | thetimes.com | Joan Smith |Mark Sanderson

Jorn Lier Horst was a detective chief inspector in Norway before he became a hugely successful crime writer. His most recent novels have been a joint venture with another Norwegian author, Thomas Enger, and they’ve all been bestsellers. Horst’s intimate knowledge of murder investigations works brilliantly with Enger’s taste for the macabre, and the new novel is seamless despite having two authors.

Sep 21, 2024 | thetimes.com | Joan Smith

In April 1897 a new maid arrived at Colstoun House, a crumbling mansion in Scotland. Clara Layt had been engaged by a local landowner, William Hamilton Broun, and his wife, Lady Susan. Clara, who was 25, found herself in a household where malicious gossip circulated about her employers and their livestock had been attacked. She worked a 13–hour day, mending stair carpets and bed linen, but that was not the full extent of her duties. Clara was no ordinary employee.

Aug 4, 2024 | quillette.com | Joan Smith |David Cohen |Sean McMeekin |Andrew Hartz

Few countries have surrendered so completely to the maximalist demands of transgender activists as Scotland, where two former First Ministers, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, both recently had their careers cut short after they supported unpopular legislation permitting men to self-identify as women. And yet, even in Scotland, the latest example of men taking over women’s spaces has left jaws hanging open.

Jun 15, 2024 | thetimes.com | Mark Sanderson |Joan Smith

Women artists are often neglected by history, and Ellery Lloyd’s enthralling novel focuses on a surrealist painter whose most significant work has long been assumed lost. Juliette Willoughby is believed to have died in a fire in Paris in 1938 and her masterpiece, , supposedly perished at the same time. Almost six decades later two art students discover there was more to Willoughby’s demise than anyone previously guessed.

Jun 4, 2024 | thetimes.com | Joan Smith |Mark Sanderson

What’s your preferred crime scene? A killing spree on a reality TV show; a French copper investigates people smuggling and worse in the migrant camps of Calais; or going undercover in sleazy, seedy 1950s Soho? This collection of the best of 2024 shows that crime writers have lost none of their relish for the darker side of life.